


Thursday

by MoraMew



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Blood, Death, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, One-Sided Attraction, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-26 23:38:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12568760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoraMew/pseuds/MoraMew
Summary: She’s growing a garden for him, a bouquet of flowers born from the love that he does not return.





	Thursday

**Author's Note:**

> What is life without love?

He doesn’t love her. He doesn’t love her. He doesn’t love her.  
  
Yachi’s heart constricts and her throat clogs with petals, her lips part with a ragged cough and they fly out in a scattering of colors, fall against the tile of her kitchen.  
  
Red. Amaryllis petals. Splendid beauty. Pride.  
  
Purple. Tulip petals. Royalty. Prosperity.  
  
Pink. Snapdragon petals. Graciousness under pressure. Strength. But, petals of larkspur as well. Fickleness. Haughtiness.  
  
Yellow. Buttercup petals. Radiant charm.  
  
White. Peony petals. Shame.  
  
She’s growing a garden for him, a bouquet of flowers born from the love that he does not return. It’s killing her, this. It hurts so much.  
  
But it’s too late for the parasite to be excised from her. The roots are buried in her abdomen, vines and stems and stalks wrapped around her intestines, curled through her ribs. Each day the flowers grow, each day it gets harder to breathe. She is choking on her love, dying from it.  
  
It’s sad. It’s pathetic. It’s unusual. She’s not supposed to be growing so many. Her doctor has asked if they can study her. There have been cases of two flowers before, three. But never six.  
  
She’s an anomaly.  
  
She’s already given permission to have her body donated to science once the flowers overtake her, once she’s been strangled and choked by them. It’s the least she could do after she’s caused so much trouble.  
  
Yachi wipes her mouth and kneels to her floor, begins to pick the bloody petals up with careful fingers. They’re so warm, so pretty in her palm.  
  
It’s a poetic sort of death, Yachi thinks as she carries the petals to her bedroom. Dying from love that will never be, choking on love that you can’t let go. It’s a sad sort of death that one can prevent, a sad sort of death that can be staved off.  
  
But then there are consequences of that as well. Rip out the love that causes flowers to bloom and rip out love completely. You’ll live but…  
  
What is life without love?  
  
Yachi sighs as much as she is able and flips open the lid to the jar sitting on her dresser. She adds the petals to the rest and then closes it up tight, feels the tickle of blossoms in her throat and wetness in her eyes, the aching in her lungs from not being able to breathe properly.  
  
The jar is almost full.  
  
And she is almost dead.  
  
Yachi sniffles and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, shivers and places her palm to her throat. She can feel the flowers dancing underneath her skin, shifting and twining and creeping closer and closer to her mouth.  
  
She has maybe a week, possibly. Such a small bundle of time left. There is the thought that she should go and say her goodbyes, tie up her loose ends.  
  
But she doesn’t really have anyone to say goodbye to- at least not anymore. Her mother abandoned her after her refusal to have the parasite cut out. She stopped talking to anyone after she started coughing up petals, pushed her friends away so they wouldn’t have to see her slowly creep toward death. Her professors don’t know of her condition and she’s kept her mouth shut tight around everyone else lest the petals slip from her lips and she becomes a burden and gives worry to another.  
  
There is no one anymore. Her mother might come back once she is dead but, for now, there is no one.  
  
And she is so lonely. And she is so tired.  
  
Tears slip down her cheeks and Yachi allows it this time, goes to her bed and curls up as she weeps silently.  
  
She is going to die. She is going to die. He doesn’t love her and she is going to die.  
  
Fear, longing, desolation swirl through her and she weeps, she cries, she shakes.  
  
Who will miss her when she’s gone? Will he notice her absence? Will he spare her a passing thought once she is dead and free from this aching, painful love? She’s been so careful to not let him know, so careful to steer clear of meaningful interaction with him.  
  
She can’t bother him with this, has kept it so secret and far from him. No one knows the name of her unrequited love. If they knew, they would go to him and they would tell him and there would be guilt placed on the one she cherishes the most.  
  
She cannot allow that to happen. No one can know. And he must not be burdened by her death.  
  
Yachi shivers and forces herself up, digs the heels of her palms into her eyes and tries to swallow around the flowers in her throat.  
  
A burden. She can’t be a burden to anyone. She needs to tie up her loose ends, needs to stop wallowing in her grief. She doesn’t want to cause anyone any more trouble. She must minimize the nuisance her death will cause.  
  
Yachi climbs from the bed and takes her notebook from her nightstand, walks to the living room and begins to make a checklist of all she can do to make this easier on everyone else.  
  
She packs up her things neatly, stores her possessions in boxes and labels them with careful handwriting. She cancels all her subscriptions, withdraws her money from her bank account and then closes it. She cleans her apartment as thoroughly as possible and drops out of university, quits her job. A letter is dictated with what she wishes to be done with her possessions and she leaves an envelope on her kitchen table with rent money for her landlord.  
  
It fills her week and helps her ignore how hard it is to breathe, how tight her throat feels and the hunger in her belly.  
  
When she tries to eat, the flowers writhe within her and it makes her see spots, ends up with her falling to her knees and coughing up blood and petals and flecks of gore. Sugar water and cold tea is all she can get down without a fuss and she is left dizzy and frail, her body weak and her mind hazy.  
  
When Yachi wakes up on Thursday, she knows it’s her last day.  
  
There is only the most miniscule of breaths allowed and her hands can’t do anything without trembling. She can taste flowers on her tongue and blood as well, can feel her throat stretched tight with the bouquet slithering through it.  
  
It’s the last day. Her last day.  
  
She will die from love.  
  
Her eyes sting at the thought but there is a calmness as well that shifts through her, a serenity that lays over the pain like a comforting quilt.  
  
It will be over soon. This pain will be gone.  
  
Yachi smiles despite her tears and she crawls out of the bed, sways and shakes when her vision goes spotted. It takes her a few moments to gather herself but then she slowly creeps out of her bedroom, wanders to the bathroom.  
  
It felt morbid picking out her last outfit earlier in the week. She is glad she did so, though, and dons it after a final shower. Her favorite dress, her favorite tights, her favorite shoes. Comfortable and familiar, something that brings her a sense of ease.  
  
The last time she wore this outfit, he had told her that she looked _precious_ that day. “Like a living doll.”  
  
Yachi smooths her hands over her outfit with a touch of fondness at the memory, smiles at the remembrance of the way he had chuckled when her cheeks stained with pink.  
  
He has such a nice laugh.  
  
The flowers pulse in agreement and Yachi coughs up petals in her bathroom sink, tiny buds of buttercups drenched in blood.  
  
She sniffles and wipes her mouth off, wipes the sink clean from her mess.  
  
Yachi finishes getting ready and then neatly stores her remaining possessions away. Her hands shake when she does so and she needs to take a few minutes to sit down after she straightened her back too fast but it gets done and her apartment is left orderly, everything organized and packaged to minimize the stress of whoever will have to take care of it.  
  
Guilt runs through her at that but it’s too late to do anything about it, too late for this to all wither away.  
  
She chose this. There is no taking it back.  
  
Yachi takes a shaky, choked off breath and goes lightheaded as the flowers rustle and push forward. They are so close to growing out of her mouth and they seem to be getting more eager to see the light of day, earnest in their creeping progress.  
  
She wonders if she’ll make a pretty corpse with her garden spilling out of her, blossoms shooting from her mouth. She wonders if he would like the flowers she’s tended with her love, if he would find them beautiful or if they’re not to his taste.  
  
Yachi brushes the thought away before it can fester, tells herself that it doesn’t matter. He will never know that this bouquet is meant for him and she will never know his reaction.  
  
In a way, it’s comforting. In another, it’s devastating.  
  
But it really doesn’t matter. There is nothing she can do about it.  
  
Yachi spends the morning in a quiet little trance, cries to herself and wipes her tears away, traces over photos of her friends and her family, the people she has pushed away and is leaving behind.  
  
She misses them so much. She hopes they will forgive her.  
  
Yachi sniffles and hides her photo album back away in its designated box, tries not to weep again when she feels the flowers stir restlessly within her.  
  
She is almost dead. He does not love her.  
  
Anxiety, fear, and dread rake through her with an intensity that makes her knees knock together and suddenly the apartment is too small, her breaths not enough. She told herself she would stay indoors and not risk a public death but there is an aching and longing for the world and life that can not be restrained.  
  
Just one last time. One last time she wants to be around others.  
  
She is so lonely. She is so afraid.  
  
Yachi leaves even if her mind screams that she’s being selfish and she walks the streets, forces tears back from streaming down her cheeks. Petals fall from her mouth as she wanders and she whispers apologies to the people that stare, hurries from their gaze and into the park near her apartment complex.  
  
It’s where they first met, where they first spoke to one another. It’s where the flowers first started to take root inside of her.  
  
Love at first sight. How rare, how sad.  
  
Yachi stumbles to a secluded park bench where she can watch others from a distance and clasps her hands tight together, feels her shoulders shake.  
  
She can’t breathe and she is dying and he does not love her.  
  
One tear, two tears, three tears and then a waterfall. She hunches over and crystalline droplets wet her dress and her tights, soak through to dampen her knees.  
  
Love, love, love. She is dying from her love.  
  
Yachi sniffles and trembles, brings a hand to wipe her eyes.  
  
She can’t do this here. She can’t be so selfish.  
  
Yachi breathes the best she can, inhales slivers of air and lifts her head for one last look around.  
  
She hopes these people can be happy. She hopes their love is returned.  
  
A set of footsteps from the right, a throbbing of flowers in her throat.  
  
“Yachi-san?”  
  
_No_.  
  
Her head whips around before she can help it and she stumbles to her feet in an effort to run when she sees who it is, when her fear is confirmed.  
  
Nononono _no_. He’s not supposed to be here. He can’t be here. He can’t see her like this. He _can’t_.  
  
A step toward her, concern on his face. The flowers writhe within her and she sobs at the pain, the tendrils that squeeze her heart.  
  
And now he knows. There are blossoms of peonies slipping from her lips and petals of amaryllis dancing through the air, blood dripping from sprouts of larkspur and tulips and snapdragons and buttercups forcing their way into the light of day.  
  
He knows and she is weeping and she cannot breathe and he does not love her.  
  
Yachi falls to her knees and he does as well, flattening petals into the dirt and staining his knees with her blood.  
  
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he whispers to her, frantic and choked. His arms wrap around her and his lips find her hair, her temple, her cheeks being ripped apart by the flowers bursting from her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t- you never- _gods_ , why? _I am so sorry_.”  
  
And she cries and she clings to him and she is selfish in the way her fingers scratch into his arm, in the way she presses against him. She cannot apologize for her love with it blooming from her mouth and clogging her throat, but she reaches her hand to his cheek, cups it and smooths away his tears with her thumb.  
  
She is so sorry.  
  
She never wanted him to know.  
  
One last tremble shakes through her and her hand falls from him, her eyes close.  
  
A final flower, a dormant red rose that bursts from the parasitic seeds embedded in her stomach and shoots through the rest, forces its way out from her mouth and springs from the center of her bouquet, her garden.  
  
Red. Rose petals. Love.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, Yacchan.
> 
> Come say hi and hello on [my tumblr](https://mystictrashheap.tumblr.com/)~


End file.
